PhotoShop CS RAW - white balance setings - best one?

Hello:

I've just started shooting RAW and most of my images are shot with my inon flash which is calibrated with a temperature of 5500 K.

In the P/S CS RAW converter I am provides with a startling number of options! It's a little daunting decided which is the better option to use.

White balance: Should I use the flash option, set 5500 K in the temperature box, or select the option that looks best - usually daylight! What do others do??

Shadows: Does anyone actually use this or do you leave it for when you post process using levels and shadows in P/S??

Any help much appreciated as I do not want to start editing only to find I am doing it incorrectly and need start over again. Iain (Australia)

White balance:

You need to set custom white balance for each shot. The eye dropper is useful for this on many shots. For macro you will eventually get a feel for what settings are right since it won't change a lot. 5500K is unlikely to be a good choice on its own. I think the right answer not only depends on your strobes but your camera and, to a lesser extent, lenses, ports, and water. The setting will vary with shooting distance.

Shadows:

You absolutely want to use this! This control has changed in the newest version (2.3) so the proper values are much different. Hold down the ALT key (on PC's) while adjusting the slider. As long as the field is white you need to raise the shadow setting. The right setting will be a matter of taste and what you want to achieve. Be careful with wide angle, though, as too much can lead to banding in the blue water. This slider clips shadow detail to black and is almost certainly what you want in every shot. It's simply a matter of how much.

Another point of view.

1. White Balance - I set my camera to auto white balance and the PS CS RAW converter then uses this as the starting point. Sometimes it does a pretty good job and all I need to do is tweak the sliders. On other occasions I resort to the eye dropper. In no case do I use the drop down options as they never seem to fit my world.

2. Shadows - Per Bruce Fraser's book, if your image contains important shadow detail, set the slider to zero or leave some headroom for use in PS.

I also leave my camera white balance set to auto. I rarely use that setting, though!

Remember that, with the shadow control, if no pixel has a 0-valued R, G, or B then there's no shadow detail being removed. You can check this instantly using the ALT key in ACR (that's what it's for). Considering the amount of diffuse light underwater, I find that most images (all wide angle) need the shadow control above 0. This is also a function of the camera. The Kodak tends to be noisy in the lowest details and you need to clip it anyway. The shadow control is a matter of taste and you have to see what you like best. Provided you work in 16 bit, the shadow control can be left low and fixed later in levels. This has the advantage of allowing you to set a true black point (color correction for blacks). I find this necessary as well underwater, and versions prior to ACR 2.3 had shadow controls that were not very useful.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I shoot auto white balance in RAW.

I did not think about the distance to subject with regard to colour temperature of the strobe. Obviously it will alter depending on distance!

It seems the best option is to twick the sliders a little, or use the eysdropper tool to define something white or grey in the image.

The shadows slider is great for making the black look actually black. Of course you loose the data in the shadows, but this is dependent on what you are looking for in the final shot.

If I understood correctly, it is best to use the shadows in the RAW converter, rather than post RAW in PhotoShop CS.

I have another question if I can which is not on this topic, but I'm sure you can help me on.

With regard to the targeting colors & clipping in the levels box in PhotoShop CS (levels/options)

What do most people have the setting set at?? The default is 0.10%.

I've noticed that 0.10% does not cause the sliders to line up exactly with the RGB histogram color block whe using the auto function, rather they fall short. However 0.20% lines them up exactly.

Photographs (especially surface shots) just seem to look better with the setting at 0.20%.

What settings to you use?? Many thanks......Iain

Eventually, with macro, you will be able to enter your white balance values with confidence. They don't change a great deal as long as your setup doesn't. I prefer not to do that, of course, but the eye dropper isn't always an option.

It's always best to make an adjustment in the raw converter if you can. RAW adjustments work on linear data so there's less information lost. Getting the shadows close allows you to get the other settings closer as well. You should view most of the raw settings as a group since they interact with one another. Be conservative with the shadow control, though, and finish using levels. A true black point adjustment is necessary for underwater and the converter doesn't offer it. You'll find that your shadows are frequently tinted cyan. You can use the channel mixer or the individual channels in the level control to fix that.

I can't help with the other question. I never use auto so I leave those at their defaults.

Hi Craig:

After much fooling around I agree that the auto settings do not work the best in comparison to setting levels manually.

A question re: white balance & the eye dropper tool. The manual says to select an area of white or black to determine best white balance.

What method do you use? How do you know that white is white. Depending on the colour of the white you select alters the white balance colour quite a lot. Thanks.......Iain